Nanotechnology- The Backbone of Advance Materials

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Contribution of Nanotechnology in the Development of Advance Materials

Nanotechnology is the technology which deals with the manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale to obtain unique mechanical, thermal, electrical and optical properties. Nanomaterials are referred to as those class of materials having atleast any one of their dimensions in nanoscale usually in the range of 1-1000 nanometres. With the progress of civilization mankind has discovered different types of materials to meet their specific needs. Bulk metals occupied a huge part as the main material of use in almost every field but with progress of science and technology there is always need for advance materials with amazing mechanical, thermal and electrical properties. Nanotechnology has paved the way for the development of different nanomaterials with unique material properties that can be used for the development of high strength materials for advance applications. Nanomaterial is a broad term which represents a wide class of materials at nanometre scale such as nanoparticle, nanowire, nanoplate, nanofibre, nanorod, nanotube, nanocomposite. Here is a brief idea of the different class of nanomaterials. Nanoparticle are three dimensional nanostructre, nanowire and nanoplate are referred as one dimensional nanostructure of respective shapes with nanowire having very high length to width ratio, nanofibre is a two dimensional nanostructure with its hollow form known as nanotube and solid form known as nanorod, nanocomposite is a solid having at least one physically and chemically distinct region in nanometre scale. Different types of nanomaterials show unique material properties with ultra-high mechanical properties owing to their extremely large surface and/or interface areas in comparison to bulk materials. Good combination of strength and toughness along with light weight is one of the prime requirement in the development of any advance materials for applications in vital fields like defense and aerospace. Steel has proved to be one of the most important materials used in almost every fields and different grades of advance steels have been developed by several researchers worldwide to get the best combination of high strength and toughness for using in advance applications. Steel as a material increases the weight much more and so different nanomaterials are emerging as the best solution to the optimum combination of high strength and toughness along with light weight. Researches show that several metallic and non-metallic nanoparticles and nanowires shows excellent mechanical properties and thus can be used as reinforcing agent in bulk matrix to develop advance nanocomposites. Composite material  is a material made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties that, when combined, produce a material with characteristics different from the individual components and thus shows amazing material properties. The individual components remain separate and distinct within the finished structure, differentiating composites from mixtures and solid solutions. Nanocomposite materials show much enhanced mechanical and material properties along with light weight in comparison to bulk composite materials and thus they can be probable candidate for using in advance defense and aerospace applications. Vigorous researches using nanomaterials are going throughout the world continuously striving to achieve further advance materials with excellent combination of strength and toughness combined with light weight and other unique material properties.

5 Amazing Technologies That Change Our World

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Few amazing technological advances that can revolutionize the world

The human race is continuously developing itself in the field of advance technologies. Scientists have carried out several experiments and discovering amazing technologies that is changing the way we live few decades ago There are many leading technologies that have achieved great heights and here we discuss some of the most important advancement among them. Here are the five giant leaps in the field of technology-

Cities that can Sense

Number of smart-city which are popularly known as satellite cities codification have run into moratorium, punched down their determined aims, or priced out everybody except the super-wealthy. A new project emerged in Toronto, called Quayside, is ambitious to change that pattern of breakdown by rethinking an urban neighborhood from the ground up and reconstructing it around the emerging digital technologies. One of the major aim of the project is to take the decisions about designing, policy making and technology on information from comprehensive network of effective sensors that collect data on each and everything from air quality to noise levels to people’s actions.  Robots will drift subterranean doing routine chores like dropping the mail. Sidewalk Labs mentions it will open access to the software and systems it’s creating so other companies can develop services on top of them, much as people build apps for mobile phones. The company aims to monitor closely the general citizen’s infrastructure and this had raised entanglement for data governance. There are other North American cities that are already planned to be next on Sidewalk Labs’ list, according to Waterfront Toronto, the public agency overseeing Quayside’s development.

Graphene

Graphene is a semi-metal with a very small overlap between the valence and the conduction bands. It is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. It is completely emerging technology and it is revolutionizing. Graphene is a layer of thick graphite and this is university of Manchester, UK. Graphene has many uncommon properties. It is the strongest material ever tested,[5] efficiently conducts heat and electricity, and is nearly transparent. Scientists are theorising graphene for years. It is named by Hanns-Peter Boehm. It is very strong, an superb conductor of heat & electricity and is assumed to transform mobile devices. It is also being tried to use it over the metal shield of various transport vehicles to raise their durability. Research is also being conducted to use it in making supercomputers of much lesser length due to its conduction properties. This is one of the most amazing technologies believed to revolutionize the tech world in a few decades.

Nano Robots

The term Nano Robot signifies to robots whose parts are close to the scale of a nanometres (10-9 meters). Imagine a tiny sensor intended to detect cancer, or to perform nano surgery. Currently in research and development, these robots have already been used to deliver drugs to the correct part of the body in terminal cancer patients. A lot of cutting-edge research is being done on this field, with major emphasis on substrate selectivity making it one of the most amazing technology in the field of medical science. The terms nanobot, nanoid, nanite, nanomachine, or nanomite have also been used to describe such devices currently under research and development. Nano-machines are in the research and development phase, but some early molecular machines and nano-motors have been tested. For example, biological machines could be used to identify and destroy cancer cells. Another application is the identification of toxic chemicals, and the measurement of their concentrations, in the environment.

3D Printing Technology

The technology can create lighter, stronger parts, and complex shapes that aren’t possible with conventional metal fabrication methods. It can also provide more precise control of the microstructure of metals. Since the year 1980 creating a three dimensional solid object digitally is something that the automotive and aerospace industry has been used. Printers have become widely available recently and are used to print anything from teapots to guns. We can even buy your own 3D printer from Staples for 1300 dollar approximately.  2017, researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced they had developed a 3-D-printing method for creating stainless-steel parts twice as strong as traditionally made ones. It’s becoming cost efficient and easy enough to be a potentially practical way of manufacturing parts. If widely used, it could change the way we mass-produce many products. Objects can be of almost any shape or geometry and typically are produced using digital model data from a 3D model or another electronic data source such as an Additive Manufacturing File (AMF) file (usually in sequential layers). There are many different technologies, like stereo-lithography (STL) or fused deposit modelling (FDM). Thus, unlike material eliminated from a stock in the conventional machining process, 3D printing or AM builds a three-dimensional object from computer-aided design (CAD) model or AMF file, usually by successively adding material layer by layer. 3D printable models may be developed with a computer-aided design (CAD) package, via a 3D scanner, or by a plain digital camera and photogrammetry software. 3D printable models may be created with a computer-aided design (CAD) package, via a 3D scanner, or by a plain digital camera and photogrammetry software.

Optical Fibre

An optical fibre or optical fibre is a flexible, transparent fibre made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. In 1880, Alexander Graham Bell developed the technology to transmit voice signals over an optical beam. Bundled together, fibre optic cables are immune to electrical interference making them good for use in computer networking. Optical fibres typically include a core surrounded by a transparent cladding material with a lower index of refraction. Being able to join optical fibres with low loss is important in fibre optic communication. This is more complex than joining electrical wire or cable and involves careful cleaving of the fibres, precise alignment of the fibre cores, and the coupling of these aligned cores. We use it in electronic devices, signal processing, in computers, to see the various organs of the human body and various other variegated applications. Fibres are often also used for short-distance connections between devices. For example, most high-definition televisions offer a digital audio optical connection. 

Nanotechnology Revolutionizing Life

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The Journey from Macro to Nanotechnology and its role in revolutionizing human life

Nanotechnology is no doubt one of the most amazing field as all studies and researches deal with investigation and application of concepts at nanometre scale. The investigation of the behavior of different materials at nanoscale show unique physical, mechanical, thermal, chemical and electrical properties due to immense surface to volume ratio in comparison to their bulk counterparts. Thus nanotechnology brought a great revolution to mankind in almost every other fields starting from medical to aerospace applications. Nanomaterial is a broad term which represents a wide class of materials at nanometre scale such as nanoparticle, nanowire, nanoplate, nanofibre, nanorod, nanotube, nanocomposite. Here is a brief idea of the different class of nanomaterials. Nanoparticle are three dimensional nanostructre, nanowire and nanoplate are referred as one dimensional nanostructure of respective shapes with nanowire having very high length to width ratio, nanofibre is a two dimensional nanostructure with its hollow form known as nanotube and solid form known as nanorod, nanocomposite is a solid having at least one physically and chemically distinct region in nanometre scale.

In the last few decades we have witnessed the technological journey transitioned from macroscale to nanoscale. This transition affected medical field where nanotechnology is now used for targeted drug delivery, developing nanoimplants for human body, improving the strength and sustainability of macroimplants, developing of nanoelectronic biosensors and lots more. Thus medical field have advanced a lot due to the use of nanotechnology which is now used for treatment of diseases like cancer. Nanotechnology has greatly revolutionized the electronics and telecommunication industry which in turn have cause massive revolution in Information Technology industry. Earlier televisions and mobiles were giant boxes and now they are slicker. The Central Processing Unit of earlier computers having storage of 10-20 MB were so big that they need to be installed in a big room with proper cooling facility. Now modern computers have more than 1 TB of storage with many other amazing features that can be folded in the form of thin book by the use of nanocircuits in motherboards and other parts of the computers. Recent technological development is also developing quantum computing technique for lighting fast computational speed required for scientific and technical advancements. The world's largest particle physics experiment research going at CERN, Geneva is carried out and monitored by thousands of supercomputers that are connected with highly precise sensors, detectors and other parts together controlling the giant experimental setup. This setup has paved the path for us to peek into the sub-atomic size particles and precisely analyse them as they merely exist for less than a nanosecond and are the building blocks of matter and universe. This accurate studies at sub-atomic level is possible because of huge revolution in the electronics and IT industry by the use of nanotechnology. The need of advanced materials having ultra-high strength, light weight and better durability for defense and aerospace industries have been fulfilled by the use of nanotechnology. Different nanoparticles, nanowires, nanotubes and nonorods having excellent strength and unique properties are used as reinforcing agents to develop different types of ultra-high strength nanocomposites having light weight. Thus nanotechnology is continuously revolutionizing  human life by providing unique solutions to different science and technological barriers in every field and the story of its earlier, present and future contributions will always remain unending.